


Lost and Found

by savethelastslice



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cigarettes, Fights, Mafia AU, Regular AU, Surrealism, runaway mark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:07:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21915739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/savethelastslice/pseuds/savethelastslice
Summary: “Someone looks cheerful today.”Mark drops the cigarette butt and grounds it under his heel. “You’re late.”Tiger laughs. It sounds like a growl. Anything can sound like a growl, with Tiger. “And you’re late every day. Don’t complain.”There’s nothing to refute in that statement. Mark stays silent.“What are you thinking about?” It is an unnecessary question. Tiger always knows what Mark is thinking. But Tiger knows that speaking it aloud strengthens resolve, so he asks anyway. “Having second thoughts? You know better than that, Mark. You cannot follow me as long as you do.”
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee, Mark Lee/Nakamoto Yuta
Comments: 10
Kudos: 54





	Lost and Found

Mark waits at the street corner beside the FamilyMart and across from Lee’s Ramen shop. The jingle of sliding doors catches his attention. A group of students in uniforms step out, giggling. Their plastic bags rustle. From where he stands, Mark can see the faint outline of instant ramyeon boxes.

He snorts derisively and takes another drag of his cigarette.

If the students see him they don’t show it. They turn the corner and disappear as quickly as they had appeared. Good riddance, he thinks.

“Someone looks cheerful today.”

Mark drops the cigarette butt and grounds it under his heel. “You’re late.”

Tiger laughs. It sounds like a growl. Anything can sound like a growl, with Tiger. “And you’re late every day. Don’t complain.”

There’s nothing to refute in that statement. Mark stays silent.

“What are you thinking about?” It is an unnecessary question. Tiger always knows what Mark is thinking. But Tiger knows that speaking it aloud strengthens resolve, so he asks anyway. “Having second thoughts? You know better than that, Mark. You cannot follow me as long as you do.”

“I don’t,” Mark replies harshly, perhaps more harsh than necessary. There is a tinge of desperation to prove himself, and Tiger rumbles deep in his throat, amused. “I was thinking…they’re just ordinary. So ordinary. Wearing the same clothes, the same hairstyles. I’ve never seen a guy in Korea without that hairstyle.”

If Tiger senses anything off he doesn’t let on. Instead, he just says, “get out of the light.”

Mark does.

Soon, they are walking down the back alley. Above them is the dark blue night sky, illuminated over buildings by occasional residue glow of pink neon. As they walk, Tiger teaches him.

“Stay out of the light. The light is where everyone is. As you said, they’re ordinary. You don’t want to be ordinary, do you?”

“I don’t.” Mark replies resolutely.

“Good, good. To be ordinary is to be regular, to be regular is to be nothing. You don’t want to be nothing.”

“I want to be something.”

“You used to be regular too. Same haircut, same clothing as everyone. Same skin. Same eyes.”

“I’ve been working to change, Tiger.”

“I know you have.” Tiger’s piercing gaze run appreciatively over the scar under Mark’s eye, still red and fresh. They both remember the way the fist had felt as it collided with Mark’s cheekbone, the sickening crack as it made impact. They both didn’t remember the face the fist belonged to. They didn’t need to. All they needed to know was that they were changed. The force didn’t matter, just the result of the force.

“When I first picked you up, you were ordinary. Now, now you are evolving.”

“I am evolving.”

“Just like when we first met. Do you remember? I was just a cub then. You nursed me and let me grow. Now I return the favour.”

Tiger stops and looks through the pillars, down at the city below. They’d been climbing the sloped back roads for a while now. Here the lighting is harsh, everything bathed white in the moon or black as sin, shadowed.

Tiger’s rich coat mottles blood red under the night. Below it, his powerful muscles ripple the skin with each movement. He sits on his powerful haunches and considers Mark silently. Mark doesn’t flinch.

“I must leave you for now. With every night you walk with me you change, evolve. Evolution takes place out of the light. Do not step back.”

Mark nods. It is cold. He does not shiver. “Yes, Tiger.”

“Tomorrow I will find you at the same place.”

“Yes, Tiger.”

From behind, a crow screeches. Mark’s head whips around and when he turns back, Tiger is gone.

With a hum, he fishes out a cigarette from his pocket and lights up. As he blows a plume of smoke to cloud the stars, Mark leans against the pillar, closes his eyes, and sighs.

\---

Johnny’s standing behind the bar as usual.

Mark slides into his usual seat at the end of the bar counter, the one below the dart board, and Johnny wanders over.

“Hello there, Mark. What can I get for you tonight?”

“Champagne, please. One ice cube.”

Johnny leaves for a while. A minute later, he returns with the drink.

It’s not a busy day today. What customers have come to the dark-lit bar have already been served, glasses mostly full and tables filled with chips or fries. There is a gentle hum of energy.

“Not a beer night, huh?” Johnny winks at Mark as he takes his first sip. “That’s rare.”

“More common by the day I think,” Mark comments, setting his drink down. “Things are changing.”

Johnny eyes him. “They sure are. You’ve got some five o’clock shadow there. When you first came here you were just a baby.”

“You served me anyway.”

“I’m too kind.”

Mark snorts. “I’m the only fluent English speaker in the five kilometre radius and you’re bored. Don’t give me that bullshit.”

Johnny laughs then. “Okay, okay. You got me.”

“And it isn’t illegal. Not anymore.”

This catches Johnny by surprise, if his widened eyes are anything to go by. “Oh yeah? Since when?”

Mark thinks for a while. “Two months? Around there.”

“You never told me,” Johnny feigns offense, a delicate hand over his heart. Correction, thinks Mark dryly. Where his heart should be. “Pray tell, Mark Lee, why you never bothered to tell me I was no longer breaking the law?”

Mark shrugged. “Never came up in conversation.”

Johnny laughed again and mouthed an expletive to Mark, who simply raised the finger in reply as he sat sipping on his champagne. The solitary ice cube clinks pleasantly as he set the glass down again. “You’re really something, huh?”

Mark grins, pleased.

\---

The next day, Tiger tells Mark to wear his suit. The black one, without the tie. So Mark does. As they walk side by side past the shuttered doors – graffiti of dead ideologies all over, backlit by lime green – Mark knows where he’s headed to at once.

He cracks his knuckles in anticipation. It’s been a while since he’s had a fight.

Sure enough, Tiger leads him to an empty lot behind the shophouses. It’s dimly lit by the two surviving lightbulbs. This isn’t the sort of place the neighbourhood police care much about when it comes to prioritising civic resources like lights.

It looks untouched from the last time. The cardboard boxes are still in the mess Mark remembered them to be in, after his opponent had slammed straight into them. He’d lain there for a long while afterwards panting, trying and failing to come to his feet. Mark had stood there and watched. Half and hour later, he’d walked off, tasting of victory.

From the looks of the dirt tracks, his opponent had managed to get up and leave. Good for him.

Whoever stepped in here, Tiger had told him, would have been aware of the rules already. You come, you fight. How you go home, if you go home, it up to you. Both will know the winner when one of them wins. There will always be one of them who wins.

At first glance the place was empty and silent. Mark shot a quizzical look at Tiger. Tiger continued to stare straight ahead.

From the shadows a man stood up and walked into the light.

Like Mark, he wore a suit. His red hair was gelled neatly up and he wore a leopard print silk shirt. The gold chain around his neck rested against his sharp cheekbones. He stood half a head shorter than Mark, but he smirked up at him all the same.

“Nakamoto Yuta. Nice to see you showed up.”

“Mark,” Mark replied. Yuta. He’d forget that name within the hour.

“That so?” Yuta’s smirk grew bigger. “I’ll have to make you remember, then.”

With that, his knuckles collided with Mark’s jaw. Mark staggered back. Yuta looked skinny but when he shrugged off his blazer Mark could see the sinews of his biceps like barely controlled beasts under smooth skin.

Mark grins. He hasn’t had a good partner in a while. Yuta would find that he was a tough customer, too.

With a yell, he charges forward. Yuta dodges his feint on the left. It isn’t enough to stop the hook from the right.

“The fight is transformative,” Tiger purrs from the sidelines as legs get tangled and both topple to the ground, grunting. “You don’t change until it’s life or death. That’s evolution, boy.”

Evolve.

Mark tastes dust on his tongue.

Change.

He feels one of Yuta’s teeth give way under his fist.

It is over before he knows it. Mark is straddling Yuta, fist poised as the other coughs. He doesn’t think to bring it crashing down because he knows, and Yuta knows, too. Victory is his.

Mark sneaks a glance to the left. Tiger has already left, always does once victory has passed.

Yuta lifts his head and spits a mouthful of blood onto the tarmac below. He smiles up at Mark. Something in Mark’s chest jumps somersaults. Yuta, it turns out, is a very pretty man.

“Damn, you got me.” He is breathless from the fight, chest heaving up and down. Under the orange neon, the sweat on his face gives a glossy sheen, and Mark is captivated.

Yuta takes one look at Mark’s eyes and smirks that cocky grin again. “You may have fought me off once, but there’s one way no one has fought me off before.”  
Mark blinks. “How?”

“This.” Yuta sits up and Mark feels his abdominal muscles shift under him, feels the press of cool lips on his. There is the distinct taste of iron.

“A little death never hurt anyone,” Yuta purrs, lips moving like a python, deadly and seductive. Arms wrap around him and Mark melts.

The next morning, Mark wakes first. Golden light filters through the curtains, and Yuta’s red hair is afire on the white pillow.

Yuta. Mark shakes his head and marvels. Remembering names. That’s a first.

“You’re becoming too sentimental,” the voice of Tiger growls softly.

So Mark slips out of the covers, pulls on his clothes, and lets himself out. He is halfway home when he discovers his packet of cigarettes is missing.

He thinks back to the hand on his ass and smiles, shaking his head. Yuta, you asshole.

\---

“Yo, Mark.” Johnny greets him as he walks through the doors. “Another champagne day?”

Mark shakes his head. “Bloody Mary, please.”

Johnny raises his eyebrow but doesn’t comment. The drink is ready by the time Mark has slid into his usual seat. “You know, it’s more common for patrons to have regular drinks than seats.”

Mark shrugs. “Sue me.”

The bartender leans on his hands as he studies the younger as if decided for or against opening his mouth. Finally, he does. “A few buddies and I are gonna hit the arcade in the next town tomorrow night. You in?”

A pause as Mark raises his drink to his lips. An arcade. He hasn’t been to one since…nevermind. He ponders for a moment. Tiger might growl at him, but that’ll be about it. It’s at night, he’ll stay out of the sun. Still following orders.

“Why not,” he replies, and Johnny grins.

“See you tomorrow then. Cigs on me.”

\---

The next night, he’s in Johnny’s car in a black sweatshirt and joggers. The two friends, Doyoung and Taeil, whoop with joy as they tear down the road, wind racing through the open windows.

As expected, Tiger hadn’t been pleased. He hadn’t been displeased either, so Mark’ll take what he could.

“University friends,” Johnny had yelled over the wind. “One deals with drunkards, that’s me by the way, one deals with psychos, one with dead people. Makes for awesome drinking company.”

They didn’t seem to mind Mark’s awkward silence or his bruises and cuts. “You’ll reconsider after you feel the old scars when you’re old,” Taeil had said, and that was all that was mentioned about the matter.

Mark appreciated that. They knew what not to talk about. Still, he couldn’t help but wonder if things would be different if they saw the state of his two arms.

“Divide and conquer!” Doyoung yells when they arrive, and that’s about it. One moment Mark is dead last in the motorcycle race, in another he beats the all-time high score for basketball to the point where a small crowd gathers around them. He’s dismal at fishing, loses out to a ten-year-old-kid. Johnny laughs at him then, and he laughs too.

He’s happily chatting to Taeil when Johnny stops in front of him, and he crashes into the elder’s back. Startled, he looks up at the hard-set jaw.

“Uh oh,” Doyoung whispers. “Those guys are trouble.”

Mark wiggles his face past Johnny’s arm and takes in a sharp intake of breath. He’d know that red hair anywhere.

Yuta is laughing with a bunch of similarly dressed men. In the centre of them all, standing a head shorter, is a kid. Mark can’t make out his face clearly, but he’s backing away. Scared.

“Who, Yuta?”

Johnny shoots him a hard look. “Where have you heard of his name?”

Mark gives a careless shrug. His heart starts to beat faster, the traitor. “Oh, you know. Around.”

Johnny looks at him silently, turmoil evident in his gaze. “I know our relationship isn’t like that, but don’t get mixed up with him. He’s trouble.”

Well, I’ve made trouble beg before me, Mark wants to say. But he knows that wasn’t him. That was him and Tiger.

“Mark?”

Beside him, the other three stiffen. Taeil grabs his shirt as they hurry back to the car, and Mark can’t help but get dragged along. He glances back at Yuta’s unreadable expression. Shifting his gaze down he meets the eyes of the kid and his veins turn to ice.

No. No. It can’t be. What is he doing here?

Mark thinks he sees the kid slip away from the group. For the first time in years, he prays that the kid does. He allows himself to be manhandled back to the car, and the four drive back in silence.

\---

“Why didn’t you tell me Yuta was mafia? Part of the head, no less.”

Tiger fixes Mark with deep-set amber eyes. “You needed a fight. What happened afterwards was your prerogative.”

Mark screams into his hands.

“You must have friction to evolve. This will not do. If you’re not willing to sacrifice or to hurt then give up. Give up and go home. Become the child you were when you first came to me, I can see that nothing has changed.”

Mark needs a cigarette. Right now. “It has, Tiger. You know it has. I need you to teach me. Please. I can’t go back.”

“You don’t know what you need.”

“I need your teaching. Please.” Mark meets his eyes and holds his gaze. Tiger considers.

The streets glitter silver from the afternoon shower but Mark and Tiger stand in the shelter of the rain and light. It’s the way it’s always been.

He’s about to answer when a voice cuts through the darkness.

“Minhyung hyung? Is that really you?”

Tiger growls, bares his fangs. With a mightly leap he runs into the shadows and disappears. Mark stares helplessly after the beast.

“Minhyung hyung?”

Fire rises from his core. Mark turns and glares at the face he knows he will find. The boy stumbles back in shock.

“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” Mark’s voice is burnt rubber on tarmac, face disfigured with rage, fury, loss. “Leave before I make you.”

The kid – stupid, stupid kid – stands his ground. His fists are clenched against his side, he is wearing a bright yellow school uniform, and his hair (stupid, stupid) is in the same hairstyle as 90% of the Korean population. “I know it’s you, hyung.” His voice, the high-pitched one Mark would know anywhere, wavered slightly.

Mark feels the pressure building up behind his eyeballs. “Minhyung is dead,” he roars. “Dead and rotted and gone.”

The kid stares back, mouth ajar, and Mark runs into the shadows, tracing the path of his teacher. He heads to the street corner beside FamilyMart and across from Lee’s Ramen shop and waits. He waits until it is too late and dark for even Johnny’s bar to be open but Tiger doesn’t show up.

So Mark leaves, retraces steps to the empty parking lot, past the winding stairs and up the flights to the third floor of the apartment building on the left. The door swings open at the fourth knock and a hand draws him in. There is cigarette smoke and booze in the air. Very quickly both are in his lungs, his veins, before a weight presses him down on the mattress, lips moving harshly against his own.

Tiger, he knows, will be bat-shit furious. Somehow, Mark doesn’t have it in him to care.

\---

That night, Mark dreams.

He is eighteen again. He is wearing a mustard yellow uniform, hair the same style as 90% of Korean men.

He is standing outside a room. In it there are voices.

“- too old –“

“-unmarketable-“

“-cut our losses-“

He continues to stand with back straight and head up, the way it was beaten into him as a trainee.

“Minhyung hyung?”

Mark turns and Donghyuck is standing there. Donghyuck is still sixteen, eyes still awestruck with wonder as he gazes up at his hyung. Donghyuck’s hands easily slip into his. “You’ll be okay. We can’t be Dream without you.”

Mark envies his youth. “You can. You will. You don’t need me anymore.”

A furrow appears in Donghyuck’s brow. “They won’t kick you out. You’re still young. You can still perform.”

“Don’t you get it? I would have graduated anyway but now I’ve got this,” Mark hits his leg and imagines he hears a dull metallic clang where they inserted the rod, “ _thing_. I can’t dance. Can’t perform. I’m useless.”

“They can’t blame you for a car accident –“

“Yes they can.”

“Hyung.” Donghyuck’s eyes are watery and for a moment, Mark feels a sharp stab in his chest. “Please. Don’t say this.”

“I can’t do it, Hyuck. I can’t. Can’t bear to go back to just being me.” Mark’s crying now. “I can’t do it.”

Donghyuck throws his arms around him, and they stay like that for a while. Eventually the door opens and Mark enters the room. They haven’t decided on anything yet, they tell him. So just keep practicing and we’ll see your hard work. Your hard work will reward you.

Fat chance, Mark thinks. That day, he walks out of the building of SM Entertainment before they can walk out on him.

That night as he sits on the street waiting out the rain, he sees something shimmering and squirming in the trash, pulls it out, and calls it Tiger.

(He thinks it looks a little like him. People've always called him Lion, after all.) 

\---

“Someone’s been here asking for you, you know.”

Mark takes another drag of his cigarette. He’s on his second bottle of soju and is quite set on drinking a third. “Probably got me mixed with someone else.”

Johnny raises an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Mark watches the thick white liquid swirl in his cup. He chooses his next words with difficulty. “I’m nobody.”

A snort. “I may be young, but I’m not an idiot, Mark. I knew who you were the moment you walked into my bar all those months ago.”

Mark stays silent and stamps his cigarette butt out in the glass ashtray. “That guy’s not me.”

“He is, more than you care to admit.”

Mark sighed. He fixed Johnny with a stare. “Let me give you one piece of advice, hyung. Stay. Out. Of. My life.” With that, he throws a couple of notes onto the counter and stalks out of the bar.

Johnny puts down the glass he’d been polishing with a sigh. “I’m sorry, kid.”

“It’s okay.” A brown-haired teen slips out from under the bar. “At least we knew this would happen, right?”

“It’s quite a way to go for one’s former bandmate, don’t you think?”

“Or one’s customer.”

Johnny laughed. “I’ll give you that.”

\---

Mark waits on the street corner beside the FamilyMart and across from Lee’s Ramen shop. Soon, he hears the familiar padded footsteps down the street.

“You slept with him.” It’s not the greeting he expected. Tiger’s words are guarded, veiled.

There’s no use lying. What Mark knows, Tiger knows. “Yes.”

“Twice.”

“Yes.”

“What did we say about strings, Mark?”

“You can’t have strings attached if you want to evolve.”

“Do you want to evolve? To be different?”

“Yes.”

“No. You don’t have it in you.”

“I do, Tiger, please, trust me.”

Tiger starts to walk away. Mark follows desperately. “Please. I’m sorry, Tiger, I won’t let it happen again.”

The large cat stops. He looks behind him, and his eyes are infernos. “You disappoint me, Mark.”

“No, Tiger, please. You promised to teach me. What happened to that promise?”

“What happened to the boy you promised to become?”

“I can still become him,” Mark sobs. His hands are trembling. The wind isn’t even cold. “I can still become someone. I’m not a nobody.”

Tiger looks away. “Go home, Mark. You don’t belong here. You never did.”

“No. No, no please. Tiger. I need you, Tiger!”

Tiger only flicks his tail in annoyance, and in a heartbeat he is gone. In the middle of the street, Mark falls to his knees.

\---

“Hey.”

Mark looks up from where he’s squatting, drinking shitty alcohol from the convenience store because he can’t bring himself to face Johnny. There are two Yutas staring down at him. He grunts in reply, squinting. The two Yutas swim even faster.

“Want to join the mafia?” Yuta says casually, flicking his lighter. He takes a deep drag of his cigarette.

Mark shakes his head and his whole body sways. “Don’t wanna. G’away.”

Yuta shoots him a pitiful look. “You’re so drunk, Mark. Still, we don’t care about those kind of things. We’re making an exception for you, see – you can fight, and more importantly you clearly remember where I live. So, join us.”

All Mark wants to do is puke his guts out and feel Tiger’s powerful presence walking step by step with him. So he shakes his head and shoos Yuta away. Yuta grabs his wrist.

“This is the first time I’m asking again, and that’s because I like you. I have nothing against you but rules are rules, hmm? No matter what a good lay you are, family first. So, will you join us or not?”

“Tiger n’ver said nothin’ about the m’fia. I disobeyed him al’redy. Can’t do that again. S’rry.”

Yuta sighs and stamps the cigarette out under his foot. Mark watches, mesmerised, as the yellow ember dies. “Well, your funeral.” With that, Yuta walks away.

Alone once more, Mark melts back against the concrete behind him and sighs. The night wind is starting to pick up. The stars twinkle in the sky. He thinks that even now he’s out of the light. Maybe Tiger would come back if he knew Mark was following orders. Maybe.

Somewhere inside, he knows Tiger is gone for good.

He squints at the sky. The stars have disappeared.

Strong arms grab his. There is a blow to his head, and everything fades to black.

The smell. Sharp. Strong. Brings to mind hazy images of a kiosk…of red, blue…green. Wheels. He giggles. Not red wheels. Wheels and red. Red. Red what?

Mark cracks open his eyes. He can’t move his wrist.

Let him think for a bit. Red…He’s getting a headache trying to remember.

Red car.

Mark blinks. That's it, isn't it? The smell, the car...cameras on seven black-haired boys tumbling through the midnight town...

That smell. Gasoline.

Go. He has to go, now. Panic rises in his chest. He screams, but there is a gag over his mouth and no sound comes out. The gag is wet from his sweat and it is then he realises he can’t see. And he’s sweating.

Fire.

Is this how he’s going to die?

He should never have left home. Never have left the place. So what if he could never stand on stage again? So what? He’d still be able to see them, right? His friends. So long ago now, who were they…Jisung! Chenle, Jeno, Jaemin. Renjun, of course. And Donghyuck. His Donghyuck.

That had been him that day, hadn’t it? Down the alley?

He’s been so selfish. So, so selfish.

Come to think about it, he may not even have paid back the cost of the soju to Johnny. Vaguely, he wondered about his tiny apartment, whether the police would find it, find his body.

The smell of smoke filled his nostrils and everything became woozy. The last thing he knew before he passed out was something tight on his arm, a voice screaming at him.

A lot of people have been screaming at him lately.

“Perhaps you’re just stubborn,” the voice of Tiger suggests. “To things you should know.”

Perhaps. Despite himself, Mark smils. Perhaps.

\---

“Tell me your date of birth.”

“2nd…August….1999…”

“Full name?”

“Lee Min…Lee Minhyung.”

\---

They tell him the town held a funeral. It was a quiet one, and no one came to claim John Doe. The coffin cover had been down, the body charred. Unrecognisable. Mummified as he was, Mark could only nod.

“H-How did you find me?” he manages to rasp out the day Johnny comes to visit.

“We have a fourth drinking buddy. A cop. Lee Taeyong.” Johnny’s dressed in a sweatshirt and jeans, very unlike the vest he wears at the bar. “You broke his little cousin’s heart when you left.”

Donghyuck. A tear rolled down Mark’s cheek but with the bandages, he couldn’t be sure.

“Taeil’s a coroner, so finding something to swap out wasn’t hard. The police are hot on the heels of the mafia thanks to you, caught a few sniffing around after the place burned down.”

“Dead…people.” Mark rasps out. “How about the…crazy people? Psychiatrist? Think he could see me?”

Johnny blinks. “Oh, Doyoung? He does customer service, sorry. I could recommend his psychiatrist, though.”

Mark sighs and sinks back to his pillow.

“I’ve been having dreams,” he finally whispers, and Johnny dutifully listens. “Tiger tells me to stay in the dark. I see worms enter caves, then their eyes slowly rot till they can’t see. I don’t want to evolve backwards. I don’t want to become less than a man.”

Johnny inspects his nails for grime. “If you’re wondering how I knew you, it’s not that I follow idol news. But –“

“Donghyuck.”

“Exactly.” Johnny’s eyes soften. “You’re not nobody, Mark. You’re loved more than you’ll ever know, and that makes you a somebody. To someone, at least. And to others who love that someone.”

Mark starts crying in earnest then, and he can definitely tell even with the bandages. Johnny crosses over to get some tissues and gently dabs away the tears. Every part of him aches, from the burns or from bruises from his fight with Yuta. From the part of him that broke when he broke someone else.

The door slides open then and footsteps enter the room.

“Here, Johnny hyung, let me.”

Mark knows that voice anywhere.

Donghyuck replaces Johnny’s hand wiping away Mark’s tears. If Donghyuck cries as well, he doesn’t let on.

One thing’s for sure – he’s Lee Minhyung again. Regular, plain. But for the first time, it’s somehow enough.

**Author's Note:**

> that was some weird shit
> 
> Im so sorry yuta ily ><
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
